A teacher with a secret addiction to child porn stole a hard drive from a classroom and used it to download sick images from the internet.

Jonathan Horenfeld’s double life was exposed after police raided his home in May last year.

By day the Manchester University graduate was a trusted geography teacher at Harrytown Catholic High School in Romiley, Stockport. By night he downloaded vile images of child abuse onto peer-to-peer sites where they could be viewed by other perverts.

Two laptops and two hard drives containing nearly 2000 child porn images were recovered after police investigating these sites followed an electronic trail which led them to Horenfeld’s door.

Prosecutor Simon Barrett told a Manchester Crown Court sentencing hearing that Horenfeld had stolen one of the hard drives he was using from a colleague who had left it in a classroom.

Jonathan Horenfeld

Horenfeld, who has been sacked by Harrytown High, was jailed by magistrates at an earlier hearing for 12 weeks for the theft. But the 25-year-old, of Signal Close, Eccles, was spared jail and sent on a sex offenders’ treatment programme after admitting 12 offences of making indecent images of children at Manchester Crown Court.

He laughed and joked as he left court.

There is no suggestion that he offended against any of the children he taught.

His lawyer, Peter Malone, told the sentencing hearing that his interest in the material stemmed from a traumatic childhood experience, and that he had been seeking professional help to change.

“The investigation started in summer 2015, and he has been living in a nightmare of his own making since. He understands that he’s here because of what he’s done - but the effect on himself and his family has been quite significant. Mr Horenfield trained as a teacher and worked as a teacher, but that profession is no longer open to him due to these offences.

Teacher Jonathan Horenfeld

"His partner is also affected - she’s unable to work as a nursery nurse now. His parents are shocked as to the possible reason for these offences occurring.

"He is someone who is ashamed and wishes to apologise. He understands what these type of offences mean to the victims - that there is a bigger effect down the line.”

Sentencing him to three-year community order, with a 60 day rehabilitation activity requirement, Judge Michael Henshell also made him subject to a sexual offences prevention order which restricts his contact with children and internet use.

The judge told Horenfeld: “Offences involving pornographic images of children are regarded by members of the general public as revolting. Fortunately most people in day to day life never come across these images, never have to look at them and don’t realise quite how revolting they are. Of course you do - it became an addiction for you to look at these images.”